Columbus, Ohio won the competition for a $40 million “smart transportation” grant from the federal government (plus $10 million from Paul Allen). The city must match this with $90 million in local funds, so it is questionable who is the real winner: Columbus or the cities that applied but didn’t win.
Columbus’ application is somewhat vague. The specific things it proposes hardly seem worth $140 million, and many of them could be done by the private sector without any government prompting.
For example, the city proposes to create an app that would allow truck drivers to find the most congestion-free way to reach their destinations and another app to help tourists reach sporting events and other popular destinations. Don’t we already have such apps in Google maps? And if not, isn’t it likely that private developers can or will make such apps without huge government incentives?
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Another part of Columbus’ plan calls for adding vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications to 13,000 city buses and cars. This prompted Alain Kornhauser to suggest in his June 27 Smart Driving Car newsletter (which wasn’t yet posted on line as of this writing) that “this is DoT’s last gasp at keeping V2V alive” and that Austin, Portland, and other cities that didn’t get the federal grant should consider themselves lucky.
In another such gasp, a report from MIT suggests that self-driving cars will lead to gridlock unless they are combined with vehicle-to-vehicle communications. This would be combined with “technology at all intersections that takes over control of approaching cars and adjusts their speed so that they can cruise through slots instead of braking and waiting” for traffic lights. Such intersections could move twice the number of vehicles that can move today through signaled intersections.
It’s an interesting vision, but it depends too heavily on government selecting a V2V communications standard that is fast, easily upgradable, immune to hacking, and cheap enough to install and maintain in the estimated 300,000 or more signalized intersections in the country. Government is more likely to select a standard that is neither upgradable as technology improves nor hack-proof. It also has proven itself unable to adequately maintain the intersections it has; a 2012 report gives American cities a D+ grade on their signal maintenance. The Antiplanner strongly suspects that private development of self-driving software and apps will take care of congestion problems without a nationally mandated V2V system.
The Antiplanner wrote:
For example, the city proposes to create an app that would allow truck drivers to find the most congestion-free way to reach their destinations and another app to help tourists reach sporting events and other popular destinations. Don’t we already have such apps in Google maps? And if not, isn’t it likely that private developers can or will make such apps without huge government incentives?
Agreed.
Though I am not a fan of Google Maps for mobile use, because it (for the most part) relies on a cell connection and can get expensive in terms of data charge. If you are in an area with limited or no cell coverage, you are likely out of luck.
But there are programs for smartphones that allow the map to be stored in the device, which means they work well even in areas with absolutely no cell coverage. There are also navigation programs designed specifically for use by commercial vehicles. All of this is out there on the market right now.
Another part of the proposal is to provide “more efficient mobility services” to the low-income Linden neighborhood. Most research shows that the best way to help low-income people is to give them access to low-cost cars, not better transit, but the application follows the politically correct formula that says that poor people should ride transit so they don’t contribute to more traffic congestion.
Absolutely. I recall someone at a meeting of the Transportation Research Board pointing out that when people of modest means have enough financial resources to buy a car (even if it may be a second-hand car), they generally do so, in spite of exhortations from elected officials accompanied by claims that “transit is the future” and “we will be placing an emphasis on transit” and so on.
Most GPS systems already offer the lowest traffic to reroute your route. The problem is…most GPS systems already offer lowest traffic to reroute your route. So a lot of people might actually use it.
Joke: What do you call someone who states the obvious?
Someone who states the obvious
A portion of the grant will be used to develop a geometrically-shaped object which will assist cars in moving more efficiently.
It does not matter that private car companies already provide the object which they quaintly call the “wheel”. With the grant money, the government of Ohio will re-invent this.
LazyReader wrote:
Most GPS systems already offer the lowest traffic to reroute your route. The problem is…most GPS systems already offer lowest traffic to reroute your route. So a lot of people might actually use it.
If the software is on a phone or tablet that is online with a cell phone device, then yes, I agree. Though (in theory) if a lot of traffic fills up an alternate route, the modern routing packages should “know” that and send the driver a different way.
Joke: What do you call someone who states the obvious?Someone who states the obvious
Don’t give up your day job just yet. You need to work on your material if you want to compete with the Chris Rock and company.
“…Google Maps for mobile use…(for the most part) relies on a cell connection and can get expensive in terms of data charge. If you are in an area with limited or no cell coverage, you are likely out of luck.”
Nope. As the article shows, you can download maps for use offline. You can download an area the size of the state of Virginia.
Frank, I am well aware that subsets of maps can be downloaded using Google Maps.
I am not enthused about that type of solution, invariably you will need some part of the map while in an area that has no data service (for me that means northern West Virginia and across the Potomac River in Western Maryland).
Much better to have the entire map (for me, that is U.S. coterminus 48, Canada and Alaska) right there on my device.
When an entire map is on a device, there are drawbacks. Frequent updates are needed to stay current on the ever changing infrastructure across an entire continent. Start time is slower if an entire continent of maps must be loaded.
One can plan ahead by downloading routes and such over cellular towers or Wi-Fi. If your needs are that different, then you would want a Garmin. For many, Google Maps suffice. I use it for everything except USFS nav. For that, I use both vintage and up-to-date USGS paper maps.
Frank wrote:
When an entire map is on a device, there are drawbacks. Frequent updates are needed to stay current on the ever changing infrastructure across an entire continent. Start time is slower if an entire continent of maps must be loaded.
TomTom updates two or three times a year, which works for me. I have high-speed broadband Internet at home, and downloading all of English- and French-speaking North America takes about 20 to 30 minutes. Not a problem for me. However, I would not want to do that over the cell network (and the cell network in the Potomac Highlands and Tygart Valley areas of West Virginia, and in the mountain counties of Maryland is not very good (low capacity and plenty of dead spots)).
One can plan ahead by downloading routes and such over cellular towers or Wi-Fi.
When you need it in those isolated places, you can be reasonably sure that it will not work. Murphy’s Law always lurks! 😉
If your needs are that different, then you would want a Garmin. For many, Google Maps suffice. I use it for everything except USFS nav. For that, I use both vintage and up-to-date USGS paper maps.
TomTom works well for me on an Android tablet computer.
At least in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia, TomTom seems to have the roads that are open to rubber-tire traffic there mapped-out pretty nicely. Also the roads in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests of Virginia and West Virginia seem to be mapped (that is most of my experience with the National Forests – my own state of Maryland has exactly no national forest land, though we have some state forests and the USDA itself owns a large swath of suburban Prince George’s County as the Beltsville Agriculture Research Center).
Google Maps mobile already offers the ability to load maps for offline use. No one can offer current traffic information online. It’s antithetical.
I don’t understand the issue of mobile data being expensive. It’s not. If you’re having a problem with mobile data useage, turn off facebook, instagram and others and use them via wifi only. They don’t offer a setting in their app nor do I expect them to do so anytime soon. I hope they prove me wrong.
I may have experienced the “everyone following traffic data” issue with accidents on I75. It’s had to say since I was in the mountains. There was only one other viable detour that was a two lane highway. It backed up badly. The cure was worse than the disease but I was stuck. And it’s not clear how much it was because of people detouring around the solid red on I75 so much as there being only 1 viable low capacity alternative route.
I recently went to Columbus for a soccer game. It’s not downtown. The stadium is north of downtown at Ohio Expo.
Traffic leaving the game was tame despite there being only one reasonable and short route back onto the freeway. Maybe the answer to sports traffic isn’t fancy tech but not locating sport stadium and arenas in the heart of downtown?
“Maybe the answer to sports traffic isn’t fancy tech but not locating sport stadium and arenas in the heart of downtown?”
Exactly. In Seattle, simultaneou events at CenturyLink and Safeco create a nightmarish situation, especially when games start during rush hour.
KC did it right with the Truman Sports Complex by placing it at the junction of two freeways on the edge of the city. Of course, KC has the best freeway infra of any North American city, so there is that.